


this crazy feeling deep inside

by irishmizzy



Category: The Office (US)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-26
Updated: 2010-06-26
Packaged: 2017-10-10 07:04:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,217
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96982
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/irishmizzy/pseuds/irishmizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day after a party is almost always a letdown.</p>
            </blockquote>





	this crazy feeling deep inside

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers through "Goodbye, Toby." Written for [nothing_hip](http://community.livejournal.com/nothing_hip/profile), which I'd like to say is the reason "See You Again" has such a high play count in my iTunes, but that would be a blatant lie.

The morning after Toby's goodbye party, Holly's the first one at the office.

The Ferris wheel is still there when she pulls into the parking lot. Everything else is pretty much gone -- the grills and the streamers and the tables and chairs -- but the Ferris wheel's still there, and so's the bouncy castle, even though it's deflated. It looks like an abandoned carnival. There's nothing about it that isn't creepy.

She waits in her car for ten minutes, listens to the radio until she can't stand the sight of the unmoving Ferris wheel in her rearview mirror any longer.

The office is eerily quiet inside, too. She'd thought maybe Michael would be here and she'd be able to give him the extra slice of pie she brought home from the diner. She checks her watch and guesses that 8:39 is too early for the employees of Dunder Mifflin. She'll just have to give it to him at lunch.

**

Dwight slams the car door when he realizes he's not the first person at work. He never should have stayed out so late the night before, but it took a while to calm Angela down and then Mose was upset because he'd been out so late and then he was up way too late trying to figure out how to deal with the whole Phyllis situation.

He doesn't see anyone in the office and he knows it wasn't Kelly's car, which can only mean that it's another strike for Holly Flax. He doesn't even know how he's going to deal with that situation.

**

"That was a great party last night, Phyllis," Oscar says. Everyone in the elevator agrees, even Michael.

Phyllis grins.

**

Pam hands Michael a list of the things he has to get to done today and then leaves him alone. It doesn't look like a lot of stuff -- Holly can't have that much paperwork if she just started yesterday, right? He can take care of that later, once he's figured out some more important things.

The first search result is for "Lorenzo Lamas," but he's pretty sure that's wrong.

Wikipedia, though, says that lama is what you call a Tibetan teacher, so maybe Jan wants the baby to be a monk? Or maybe she wants to study to become a nun during her pregnancy -- it makes a little sense, since pregnant women don't usually have a lot of sex, right? Maybe Jan's trying to change. Maybe that's why she wants Michael to go Lamas class with him.

**

By 10:30 Holly has carefully organized all her desk drawers, completed one of the six required online training sessions, and tacked a self-made color-coded calendar above her desk. The only thing on it is the date she needs to finish her online training by, but still. It makes her feel productive. She hasn't seen or talked to anybody but Kelly all morning, and even then they only said good morning before Kelly's phone rang. Now Holly's just listening to Kelly tell someone about last night's super romantic office party.

She's seriously considering making a lap around the office, maybe getting a cup of coffee or seeing how Kevin's doing today, when a new email pops up. It's probably another training thing – When to Keep Your Coworker's Secret and When to Report It to the Authorities or How to Use a Printer or something equally ridiculous -- but she checks anyway.

Turns out it's an email from Toby. He's not leaving for a couple of weeks, he says, so if she has any questions she should feel free to email him. He tells her that Dwight's going to want to schedule a standing appointment for every Friday afternoon and it'll probably always go long, that ignoring Kelly won't make her stop talking, you need to actually end the conversation for her to get the hint, and that if she needs anything in the office she should ask Pam, because Pam's the nicest person in the office and she's the one who knows everything and she'll be more than willing to help.

It's nice of him. Really nice. She doesn't really have anything to say in response, though, except thanks, and that always seems like a dumb email to send. "Thanks! -- Holly." What is that? It's dumb, is what it is.

She refreshes her inbox and decides to work on memorizing the names of everyone in the office.

**

"Jim. Jim. Jim." Michael keeps stage-whispering from the doorway to his office, which means everyone in the room knows something is up. "Jim. Jiiiiiiiim. Jim."

When Jim finally turns around, Michael's erratically jerking his head towards his office.

"Oh, hey, Michael. Did you need something?"

Michael presses his lips together and nods towards his office once more. Jim spins his office chair so he can catch Pam's eye as he stands up, but her head's down and she's not paying any attention. He frowns at the camera instead and follows Michael into his office.

"Jan's pregnant," Michael says.

Jim pauses, hand still on the doorknob, and gapes. After a moment he shuts the door and, looking more at the camera than at Michael, says, "And I thought this was going to be about Holly."

Michael sighs.

"Okay," Jim says, dragging a chair forward so he can lean his elbows on Michael's desk. "Okay. So Jan's having a baby."

Michael nods.

"Are you the father?"

Michael hesitates before he says, "Sort of." He drops his face into his hands and makes a strained noise. He sounds like a dying cat. Jim looks at the camera again because of course. Of course Michael is sort of the father.

"Is the baby -- Michael, is the baby yours?"

"No," Michael moans into hands.

"Okay," Jim says, sighing. "So Jan's pregnant and it's not your baby but she wants you to be the father?"

Michael nods once, slowly, and Jim has to bite his lip to keep from asking any of the million questions flying through his head -- how? When? Why? What the fuck? -- because it's all too much right now.

"I thought Jan was gone," he says. "And you said you and Holly had a -- a thing going."

"She WAS gone," Michael says, finally looking at him. "But then she was at the grocery store and babies without fathers are more likely to be illiterate --"

"That's not true."

"-- And I think Holly likes Kevin, anyway."

"I don't think that's true, either."

"And," Michael takes a deep breath, "And I think Jan wants the baby to be a monk."

Jim presses his lips together and holds his breath.

"Oh my God, how am I going to tell everyone about this?"

"No," Jim says, shaking his head. Michael buries his face in his hands again and Jim tilts his head back, purses his lips, and closes his eyes as he blows all the air in his lungs towards the ceiling.

**

Pam's dealing with some weird emotional hangover from Toby's goodbye party and she's pretty sure it's making her moody and possibly a little irrational. Like right now and how she's got so many tabs open that she can't deal with it anymore. Ever since they got to work this morning Jim's been sending her links to sublets listed on Craigslist, which is great and thoughtful and everything but seriously, sometimes she wishes he'd just take two giant steps back, because she has twenty some-odd tabs open here and it's stressing her out.

She hesitates before she exes out of the window, and then again when Firefox warns, "You are about to close 28 tabs. Are you sure you want to continue?" but when it's gone she stares at her desktop and breathes a sigh of relief.

When she looks up she realizes Jim's not at his desk and Michael's door is closed. She winces and tries to think of a way she could rescue him, but the phone rings before she gets very far.

"Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam."

**

Andy wonders if it's customary to have a surprise engagement party for your coworkers who just got engaged, because Phyllis hasn't been able to look at him all morning, even though she keeps turning around to look at Angela when she thinks no one is paying attention. He really hopes that if Phyllis is throwing them a surprise engagement party that it isn't today, because he stopped at the bakery this morning and bought two dozen wedding bell-shaped cookies and a sheet cake that says "Congratulations Future Bernards" in blue icing. He's planning on laying everything out in the conference room and inviting people to stop by for some cake and congratulations, and he really doesn't want Phyllis stealing his thunder.

Phyllis looks up and catches him looking at her. She smiles and Andy taps his pen on his desk and tries to act like he wasn't staring.

"Stop that," Stanley says without looking up. Andy puts his pen down and goes back to the spreadsheet he's supposed to be working on.

**

The new HR girl is quieter than Toby, which Kelly didn't even think was possible.

A few times she's peeked over the cubicle wall, but Holly's always clicking at her computer and staring really intensely so Kelly doesn't think it's a good time to interrupt. Even though she really wants to tell her that people with her coloring shouldn't wear so many neutrals because it washes them out. Girls with blonde hair should wear blues or turquoises or other jewel tones and if she wants, Kelly will go to the mall with her after work one day this week because everyone knows its hard to find the good sales when you're new in town.

If she knew Holly's email address she'd definitely send her one saying just that, but she doesn't. Maybe she'll pass her a note instead, like she used to do all the time back in the day. She can use the good paper she keeps in the back of her desk drawer -- the hot pink kind she used to use to leave Ryan sexy love notes -- and she'll write "Holly, do U want 2 go 2 the mall w/me this week? Check yes or no" and maybe after they buy Holly a few cute tops they can go to Cold Stone and then maybe see that new Ashton Kutcher movie where he goes to Vegas and accidentally marries Cameron Diaz because when she told Daryll she wanted to see that he said no way. But then he watched The Paper with her and agreed that it was so horrible how everyone was so mean to Amanda even though she sometimes can act like a crazy dictator. Kelly wonders if Holly likes The Paper. Probably not, because anyone who wears boring suits like that probably doesn't watch a lot of MTV.

**

Three hours at work and Angela still hasn't said a word to anyone. She can feel Dwight and Andy both watching her from across the room. Oscar and Kevin have been playing that ridiculous hateball for the past thirty minutes and they keep glancing at her like they're waiting for her to yell at them. Kevin wins another round; while Oscar makes a note of it on his desk calendar, Kevin does a quiet victory dance.

Angela doesn't look up. She recites another Our Father under her breath and punches the buttons on her calculator a little harder.

**

Pam watches Dwight watch Angela and a part of her feels horrible for him because she's been there before, sort of, and it sucks. It sucks a lot. She tries not to dwell too much on how she actually feels bad for Dwight.

She tries to distract herself by playing solitaire but after five minutes she's got negative $247 and she's still bored, so she gives up and checks her email. There's one from David Wallace warning everybody not to talk to the media about Ryan Howard and what Dunder Mifflin is calling his "situation." Remembering it makes Pam a little sick to her stomach. In all the craziness of yesterday -- Toby leaving, the fireworks, Andy and Angela -- with all of that, she'd forgotten about Ryan. And now here she is, playing solitaire and being bored while Ryan's stuck in a jail cell with some drunk drivers and a mugger named Bubba.

She ends up googling Ryan to see what she can find. Fist pressed against her mouth, she skims the articles to see if there's any new information -- almost all of them mention Dunder Mifflin Infinity and the fraud and that he was released on bail and it's a relief. But then she starts seeing things like "alleged drug use" and "frequent partier" and "rapid downward spiral" and she has to bite her finger so won't burst into tears. Every article has the same two pictures: both are Dunder Mifflin headshots, except one's from his New York badge and the other is from the badges Michael made them all get that time. It was only a few years ago, but he looks so young in it that it makes her throat close up. Now she really feels like she's going to retch.

"Helloooo, Pam."

"Hmm, what?" Pam looks up and sees Kelly standing there, waving her hand. She blinks a few times and tries to clear her head.

"Are you crying?"

"What? No." Pam blinks again and forces a smile. "I was just reading an article -- I'm sorry, did you need something?"

"I was just wondering if you wanted to maybe go to the mall today?"

"I have plans." It's not entirely true, but it could be. Jim had mentioned something about maybe going out to dinner while they were in the car this morning.

"Maybe next week, then?"

"Yeah, maybe."

Kelly drums her nails against the desk and inhales like she has more she wants to say. But then the phone rings again and Pam has to turn away to answer it. By the time she hangs up, Kelly's gone.

**

"Where is everybody?" Kevin asks Oscar -- at least, Holly thinks that's Oscar. Probably-Oscar shrugs and eats another forkful of his salad.

"That looks like a tasty sandwich, Kevin," Holly says.

Kevin smiles and nods. "You want a bite?"

"No, thanks."

At one of the other tables, Kelly's asking Andy a million questions about the wedding. Everyone else at the table – okay, just Stanley and the red-headed woman -- is half-listening. Andy keeps deferring to Angela, who never answers. She just glares at him until he stops talking, at which point Kelly asks another question and the cycle repeats.

Holly remembers the slice of pie she brought in for Michael. She hopes no one steals it.

**

Pam watches the video of Ryan's arrest twelve times in a row. She can't stop. She doesn't know why. It's like she's glued to her desk.

Instead of eating lunch she googles the maximum sentence for securities fraud. It's not like she's hungry, anyway.

**

"Hello, Phyllis," Dwight says. He's sitting at the table in the kitchen, watching her put an excessive amount of Italian dressing on her salad. He figures she'll be distracted while she's focusing on her food, and that way he can more easily manipulate her into forgetting what she saw.

"Dwight," she says, without looking at him.

"I think we have something to discuss."

She turns around and looks directly at him. "Do we?" she asks.

He stammers. When he doesn't say anything that sounds like actual words, she picks up her lunch and takes it to the break room.

He slams his fist against the table. Phyllis is going to be a lot harder to break than he thought. It's definitely going to take more than fifteen hours to formulate a plan.

**

Styrofoam box in one hand, Holly knocks on the door to Michael's office.

"Yeah?"

She pokes her head in and startles when she sees the camera pointed at her. It takes her a second to notice that the salesguy is there, too.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she says, "I didn't realize you were busy."

"No no no," the tall guy -- Tim? Jim? -- says. "No no, we're pretty much done here, come in."

"But Jim," Michael whines.

"I'm sorry," Holly says again. "I just --," she looks at the cameras and then at Michael, "I just wanted to -- I had some leftover pie from yesterday and I though you might like it." She can feel her face turning red. She takes a few steps towards Michael's desk and sets the container on the corner.

"Okay, I'm gonna --." Jim points at the door.

"Oh, no, I'll go," Holly says.

"No, you stay. Michael loves pie. Right, Michael?"

Michael looks like he's going to be sick. Or cry. Or both. He stands up and takes a deep breath. "Holly," he says, "I have something to tell you."

"Michael," Jim warns. It's like he's a dad talking to a six-year-old on the verge of a meltdown, not a guy talking to his boss.

Michael ignores him. "I have something to tell everyone," he says, walking out the door and onto the floor of the office.

"Oh God," Jim says. When Holly looks at him, he's looking directly at the camera.

"Everybody in the conference room!" Michael yells. Pam's the only one at her desk, so nothing happens. Jim shakes his head.

Michael yells again, louder, and then Dwight's screaming the same thing from the kitchen and then people are grumbling and slowly filing towards the conference room, glaring at Dwight as they pass him. They all glare at Michael, too.

Holly wants to ask Jim what's going on, what Michael's news is, but when she turns to say something, he's not there.

**

"What's going on?"

"You'll never believe it. Come on."

Jim waves his hands in a hurry-up gesture and Pam turns off her computer monitor and sets the phones to voicemail.

"Pam, chop chop" Michael says, clapping his hands. "Let's go."

**

Kelly takes the seat next to Angela and stares at her engagement ring.

"I think it's beautiful," she says. "It looks a little like the one K-Fed gave to Britney, except smaller. But Andy probably didn't use your money to buy the ring, so yours is totally better."

Across the table, Phyllis smiles and nods.

Angela frowns and puts her hands in her lap.

**

"Everybody, can I have your attention -- eyes up front, I have an announcement."

In the back of the room, Stanley lowers his crossword slightly. Kelly stops talking. Pam looks back and forth between Jim and Michael.

"Ooh, cake!" Meredith says, ignoring everyone else and peeking into one of the boxes on the table.

"Cake?" Kevin says. "Are we having a birthday party?"

"It's not anyone's birthday," Pam says.

"This is not a party planning committee sponsored event," Angela adds, crossing her arms.

"Congratulations! Surprise!" Andy half-leaps out of his chair when he yells it and he ends up awkwardly hovering above his chair while everyone stares blankly at him.

"How did you know about my announcement?" Michael asks.

"Everybody knows."

"What? No. Only Jim knows."

"I know, too" Kevin says, raising his hand. When Michael glares at him he lowers his arm. "But I didn't tell anybody."

"Did you bring this cake?" Angela asks Andy.

"There's cake?" Creed asks.

"No, everyone has to listen," Michael says.

"Looks like a cake to me," Jim says.

"That's because it's a cake, Jim."

"You just told Creed no, there wasn't cake."

"It has white frosting," Meredith says, lifting up one corner of the lid. She sticks one finger into the box.

"I'm not eating any cake your filthy hands have touched," Angela says.

"Are there roses on it?" Kelly asks. "I hope there are. The pink kind are my favorite. The blue just taste gross."

"The colors don't taste any different," Oscar says. "It's food coloring."

"They totally do," she says. "The blue are gross." Behind her, Kevin nods.

"Enough!" Michael yells. "Everybody stop talking about the cake."

"I wasn't talking about the cake, Michael," Dwight says.

Andy raises his hand. "Neither was I."

"I thought you said there wasn't cake," Jim says. Next to him, Pam sighs.

"I'm going to be a dad!" Michael yells. "Jan is having a baby." Stanley drops his pencil.

"Oh my God," Kelly says. And then everyone starts talking at once:

"When's the baby due?"

"Is it a boy or a girl?"

"There is no way this can end well."

"I will be the baby's godfather," Dwight says, standing up and putting one hand on Michael's shoulder. Andy does the same thing only louder and on Michael's left shoulder.

"Is this a joke?" Pam whispers to Jim.

"Not even close. But," he says, "The baby isn't his."

Pam's eyes widen. "Does he know that?"

"Surprisingly, yes."

Pam makes a face, a cross between a frown and 'oh, that's pleasantly surprising.' Jim nods. "Exactly," he says, "I'll tell you later. When we're not, you know, here."

"Cake?" Phyllis offers, holding out a slice.

"I'm good, thanks," Pam says. Jim smiles and takes the plate.

"Are there any forks?"

"By Oscar," Phyllis says. Jim and Pam worm their way closer to where Phyllis is pointing. Oscar hands Jim a fork and they all inch closer to the door.

"Did you see Wallace's email?" Oscar asks. Pam nods.

"Yeah," Jim says, "Can you believe that? This should've been our goodbye, Ryan cake. They could have baked a nail file into it."

Oscar laughs. "Do you think they'll make him shave for jail?"

It's not long before Pam's feeling nauseous again.

**

While everyone's congratulating Michael and eating cake, Creed finds two unopened bakery boxes. He opens one and puts it on the table. He watches the secretary take one last look around the conference room before she slips outside.

Since no one's looking, he takes the other box and hides it in the bottom drawer of his desk. That kind of cookies can last for a month.

**

"Michael, if it's a girl, you have to name her something pretty, like Halo. Or Epiphany," Kelly says.

"Names should be powerful," Dwight says, "To instill the child with strength and courage."

"Yeah, thanks, I'll keep that in mind."

"Ew, Dwight, what are you going to do, name her like, Agnes? Or Helga? She'll be hideous."

"Helga means holy and successful."

"Well then why wouldn't you just name her Holy? Or Success? Oh my God, Success would be the cutest name."

Michael stares at a stain on the carpet and wishes with all his might that they would just stop talking.

**

Pam makes it all the way to the parking lot before she remembers that Jim drove her to work this morning and now she doesn't have any way to get home. Which is fine, it's just now what's she going to do, sit outside and stare at the asphalt until her stomach settles and she feels ready to go back inside? Whatever. At least it's better than having to watch Dwight watch Angela eat cake while people joke about Ryan's ruined life. She wonders if her coworkers were always this mean-spirited, if maybe she never noticed because she had her own things to deal with or something. It worries her that she doesn't know the answer. She kicks at a pebble and thinks that maybe a summer away from Scranton is exactly what she needs.

The pebble skitters across the parking lot and she follows it, aimlessly kicking and walking. She sees the deflated bouncy castle and makes a mental note to remind Phyllis that the carnival rides can't stay here forever.

"Hi," someone says, and Pam jumps. She has to squint and shade her eyes from the sun before she can make out Holly, sitting in the bottom car of the motionless Ferris wheel.

"Sorry," Holly says, "I didn't mean to scare you."

"No, it's okay. I just didn't expect anyone else to be out here is all."

"Yeah." Holly shrugs. The sun glinting off all the metal around her makes it look like she's glowing.

"It was a little too much up there," Pam says, mostly because she doesn't know what else to say. "I just needed a break."

Holly looks down at her lap and doesn't say anything. Pam wonders how long it'll take before someone upstairs notices they're both missing.

**

Phyllis's phone rings right as Michael starts separating people into teams so they can play charades. ("Because babies can't talk and you have to guess what they're acting out, just like charades," he'd explained, and then Dwight and Andy had spent five minutes fighting over who got to be the other team captain, and that's when Phyllis slipped out of the conference room.) The call's nothing stressful -- just one of her steady clients placing his semiannual order -- but she manages to talk him into increasing the quality of his paper, so that's a nice bonus. While she's lists their new colors of recycled cardstock she can hear Jim guessing all the wrong answers and she tries not to laugh.

When she hangs up she thinks about how excited Bob's going to be about the extra commission. She walks to the printer to pick up the hard copy of the completed order forms and, while she stands there waiting for the printer to warm up, she notices Angela.

"Aren't you going to have cake?" Phyllis asks. She tries to make it sound innocent, but it doesn't really come out that way. "You know, it's rude to hide from your own party."

Angela's turns her head sharply and glares at Phyllis, but she doesn't say anything. Phyllis stares back and eventually Angela goes back to her calculator.

Phyllis collects her papers and smiles to herself as she walks back across the room. It's been a couple of good days.

**

"Stanley, it's your turn," Dwight says.

"I'm not playing," Stanley says.

"Michael!" Dwight protests. Stanley doesn't look up, but Michael must shrug or point or whisper something, because Dwight sighs angrily and says, "Fine. Kelly, go."

Stanley shifts in his seat and finds a more comfortable position. Twenty-four down is "rattans" which makes thirty-two across "dystopia," and just like that everything falls into place.

**

"It's just -- I don't know, it's just been a lot. And it's only been two days." Holly sighs. "I'm sorry for dumping all that on you. I'm supposed to be the one people talk to, not the other way around."

"Oh, I understand," Pam says. "This place takes a long time to get used to. Michael especially."

"Toby wasn't lying when he said you were the nicest person in the office."

"Really? He said that?" Pam smiles and, after a moment, she laughs. "Toby was -- I don't even -- he was practically a saint, putting up with everything here. I mean, at least Michael likes you."

Upstairs someone's turned on some music; Holly and Pam both squint at the building as "We Are Family" seeps through the windows. The metal Ferris wheel car is warm from being outside all day and Pam keeps pressing her toes against the ground to make the car rock back and forth. Holly closes her eyes and breathes deeply. Pam keeps swinging.

**

"_Million Dollar Baby_?" Meredith guesses.

"Yes!" Dwight jumps up and down. "Take that!"

Michael stomps to the front of the room and holds up two fingers. "Peace?" Jim guesses. "V? Victory? _V for Vendetta_?"

Meredith takes another sip of her diet coke -- just plain today; she's trying this new thing where she only spices up things every other workday -- and high fives Dwight when he runs past her, nowhere near done with his victory dance.

**

When the music shuts off, Pam stops swinging and checks her watch. She's been out here longer than she expected. Too long, really.

"I should get back inside," she says. "It sounds like the party's over."

Holly nods but doesn't appear to be moving. With an awkward wave, Pam slides out of her seat.

Upstairs she almost gets knocked over by Stanley as he passes her in the entryway, but at least everybody's not sitting at their desks watching her slink back to hers. She takes advantage of the unexpected chaos and checks the phones. Michael didn't miss any important calls, which is a relief. She wakes up her computer and, while she waits, makes a to-do list of all the things Michael's going to need to get done soon because he blew them off today. When she finishes the list, she sticks the post-it to her computer monitor. And that's when she sees the open tabs about fraud and drug possession and all the gross feelings from earlier come rushing back. The room suddenly feels a whole lot smaller.

"Hey, where'd you disappear to?"

She jumps in her seat, presses a hand to her chest. Tries to remember to breathe normally. She swivels her chair to face Jim. "Oh, outside. I just needed some air."

"Well, you missed a mean game of charades."

Pam wrinkles her nose and he laughs.

"Michael's letting everyone leave early."

"So that's why Stanley ran out of here, then."

"Well, he didn't want Michael to change his mind. He's a busy man, Pam. He has baths to take and red wine to drink."

It makes her laugh harder than it should; she ends up hunched over her desk, fighting to breathe. When she straightens up, Jim's looking at her weird.

"I do not think that is funny," he says in his Stanley voice. She collapses in giggles again. This time, Jim laughs, too.

"Ready to go?"

"Just about," she says. She saves the notepad file of things she's going to need to buy for New York, closes Firefox and its 6 open tabs without a second glance, and logs off her computer. She's not going to think about Ryan anymore today.

"So the baby's not really Michael's, huh?"

**

Holly waits until pretty much everyone's left. No one noticed her sitting in the Ferris wheel while they were all climbing in their cars, and she can't decide if she's depressed about that or relieved. It doesn't matter now; all she wants to do is get her purse and go home.

She's almost home free when she spots Michael. He looks up from his desk just as she's walking past his door. She freezes like she's been caught.

"Hey, Holly!" Using his fork, he waves her into his office. "This pie is delicious. You should have some."

"Oh, no thanks, I had some yesterday."

"Come on, pie is for sharing. And sharing is caring." He motions to the chair across from him and, reluctantly, she sits down.

She can see the top half of the Ferris wheel outside his window. It still creeps her out. He passes her a fork and a napkin and when he smiles at her it's like his whole face has softened. She takes a deep breath and smiles back before taking a forkful of pie.

"The Glider Diner makes pretty good pie," Michael says. "They usually only give you a tiny slice, but this one -- you lucked out. This is great. I think this is the biggest I've ever seen."

"That's what she said."

While Michael stares at her, wide-eyed and open-mouthed and somehow grinning, she steals all of the whipped cream.


End file.
